


Hey, Vampire

by 0bviousLeigh



Category: IZONE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Gen, Vampire MV inspired, mentioned sakura/chaeyeon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 21:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: Yena realizes she doesn’t know what day it is. Not the date, month, day of the week, or the year.
Kudos: 14





	Hey, Vampire

**Author's Note:**

> I've literally been working on this for over a year. I wanted to write a Vampire MV inspired story so bad but I kept losing my motivation so before disbandment, HAVE THIS.

The question should be simple enough to answer, but nothing is ever simple in this house.

It’s all because Yena simply can’t be bothered to conjugate Latin at the moment. In fact, she doesn’t even want to learn Latin, but Eunbi insisted.

* * *

_“What kind of Vampire would you be if you didn’t speak our original language?”_

_“Vampires didn’t originate in Rome,” Yena said, thinking herself clever enough to get out of this assignment._

_“No, but it’s the only language we all know.”_

_“Why? Shouldn’t it be Romanian?”_

_Eunbi had frowned. “No, Romanian is a later language.”_

_“Why didn’t all the Vampires learn cuneiform? Or Sumerian? Why did it have to be a European language?”_

_“You know why,” Eunbi had said crossly, and then dumped a pile of dusty books in Yena’s arms and sent her off to study._

* * *

Latin is a stupid language, too many noun cases, too many tenses, too many versions. Old, Classic, Vulgar—Eunbi wants her to learn it all. Why? Who cared if she ever met a Vampire old enough to have been a native speaker? How likely was it that she would run into one that old? Did those old marble chunks of history even come into the world anymore? Yena had been told (albeit by Yujin, who is not the best source of information) that the Old Ones were paranoid and mostly hid in caves.

That gets Yena thinking about time. Once you realize that you have eternity looming in front of you, time come to have a great meaning in your everyday life. Then after about twenty years, it stops having any meaning at all. The one date every Vampire knew was the day (or, at least roughly) that they were turned. For Yena, it’s May of 1980.

Then she starts thinking about how the world has changed since she became immortal. Then she starts wondering, just how long had it been since she was turned? Then she realizes she doesn’t know what day it is. Not the date, month, day of the week, or the year.

Being that she’s in library, it should have been easy to find some kind of reference. But they don’t get any newspapers or magazines delivered (not to the woods in the middle of Russia), and in this particular library the most recent book had only been published thirty years before Yena was born. So she cheerfully tosses aside Eunbi’s Latin tomes and sets off to solve this much more pressing issue.

The first person she finds is Yujin, staring at her own reflection in a large mirror just outside the library. Yena is about to scoff at her vanity, then she remembers Yujin grew up at a time when the best mirrors were still backed with silver.

“Yujin, do you know what year it is?”

Yujin blinks and turns from the mirror. “No, why?”

Yena shrugs. “Just curious.” She starts to walk down the hall, and after a moment, Yujin follows her.

“Curious why?”

“Because I just realized I don’t know what year it is.” Yena also realizes she doesn’t quite know where to head next, so she stops in her tracks to think about it, and Yujin stops just short of her.

“Why do you care?”

Yena tries not to grind her teeth in frustration. “Why does anyone care?” More existential than she means to sound, but it seems to make sense to Yujin.

“Sakura must know,” Yujin muses.

Yena disagrees. “Why would she? She says it doesn’t matter.”

* * *

_Sakura was bitten by a rogue vampire on her wedding night and her whole family was slaughtered. She hid for ten years in a tomb, and was finally pulled out by a Vampire named Sashihara. The rogue who turned her and killed her family had been dispatched, and Sashihara had been sensing the young vampire and looking for her for a year._

_Sakura spent her youth thinking herself a monster, changing her name to ‘Sakura’ because the flower was so fleeting and the name was considered unlucky._ _Sashihara-san called her dramatic and taught her to hunt down the bad people, how to drain them properly and not leave accidental survivors like herself (“I do not remember him much, perhaps he was injured by my kin, maybe his blood dripped into my mouth.”), or make crazy, bloodthirsty rogues like the Vampire who attacked her._

_Sakura had just made the cutoff to be part of the Vampire’s governing body. She didn’t know when exactly she was turned, but it was definitely before the year 705 AD._

_“That’s oddly specific,” Yena said. “Why not the year 700?”_

_“Because in those days there was no standard world-wide calendar,” Sakura said. She was so old, her every move was hypnotic even to a Vampire—or at least, one as young as Yena was. Yena had to blink frequently in Sakura’s presence, so she didn’t get sucked in to her glamour. “You’ll rarely find a Vampire my age who acknowledges the Anno Domini calendar. We measured time by significant events, and that was the year Empress Wu was deposed.”_

_“The Vampires cared about a Chinese Empress? I thought they were all mostly still in Europe at the time.”_

_“No one can really be sure of that,” Sakura said. “The most powerful ones were definitely in Europe, but there were some influential Vampires in Asia. In answer to your question, they cared because they liked her. Some wanted to make her one of us, but the ruling parties forbid it.”_

_“Why?”_

_“She was recognizable, she was temperamental, and she didn’t want it.”_

_“She knew about Vampires?”_

_Sakura had laughed and Yena had to grip the sides of her chair tightly so she didn’t throw herself at Sakura’s feet. “Of course she knew.”_

* * *

“Maybe Eunbi knows,” Yena says, pulling herself back to the present. “Where is she?”

Yujin shrugs. “I haven’t seen her in…”

Yena waits for an answer. Time really does start to lose meaning after a while.

“I’ll come with you,” Yujin finally says. “I want to see Eunbi.”

The castle isn’t really that big, it’s just that after so many decades of living in it, and having lost any sense of time, it’s rather easy to just sit in one place and not move for a very long time. They don’t get fidgety, at least not after the first dozen or so years, and their joints don’t stiffen or fall asleep. The only thing that could possibly rouse them from a stupor and motivate them to move is hunger, and right now Wonyoung is really the only one still ruled by her bloodlust.

Yena isn’t even really that old, but it’s rare for a Vampire to make it through the first ten years. In her case, she owes it to Eunbi’s expert care as her Sire. If a Vampire isn’t monitored carefully, they end up letting hunger consume them and go out and kill massive numbers of people, and then the governing body steps in and burns them. Yena has survived the first decade, and she remembers that Eunbi congratulated her when she got to twenty years past her change date…that was the year of the Millennium, and that was a big to-do…she’s older than thirty, Eunbi congratulated her for that, too…

“How long ago was the millennium?” She asks Yujin.

“If I knew that, I would know what year it is,” Yujin says smartly.

“Yes, but was it more than ten years ago?”

“Definitely,” Yujin says. “Wonyoung has been here less than ten years, and I know her change year had a one in the tens place.”

“Wasn’t it…2013 that she was changed?”

Yujin bites her lip. “I…think so.”

They pass an open door and peek in at the same time—they’ve found Hitomi, staring into her tank of jellyfish, her latest obsession.

“Hii-chan,” Yena calls, “Have you seen Eunbi?”

Hitomi doesn’t look up from the jellyfish that she’s stroking. “Nope. Why?”

“Would you happen to know what year it is?” Yujin asks.

Hitomi looks up, blinking like she’s come out of a glamour. “Year? You mean, now?”

“Yes,” Yena and Yujin say together.

Hitomi frowns. “I don’t think I do. I remember 2016…but I think that was some years ago.”

“That was the year of Trump,” Yena remembers.

“When was Wonyoung turned?” Yujin asks. “Was it 2013?”

“2013…” Hitomi muses. “The year rings a bell.” She giggles at the phrase—Wonyoung taught it to her.

“If only we knew how long Wonyoung had been with us,” Yena sighs.

“Oh, is that why you think Eunbi will know?” Hitomi asks. “Well, when you find out, come tell me.”

Yena and Yujin turn to leave, but then Yena turns around again. “Why jellyfish, exactly?”

Hitomi grins at her pets. “The sting tickles,” she says dreamily.

Yena and Yujin glance at each other, then leave.

They find Nako and Hyewon next, exiting Nako’s darkroom.

“Cameras!” Yujin gasps. “They have dates!”

Yena and Yujin crowd Nako, shoving Hyewon aside.

“What do you want? I’m hungry,” Nako says flatly.

“Do you know what year it is?” Yujin asks.

“No,” Nako says, “Why?”

“Don’t cameras put dates on photos?” Yujin asks with a pout.

“Not my cameras,” Nako says, “And these aren’t my pictures, these are from all the film rolls I collected while I was in Canada.”

By “collected”, she means that she found them in old cameras, bought them in thrift stores, scrounged them from dumps, or outright stolen them. Nako just…really likes developing other people’s photographs. Wonyoung sighs at her fondness for old-fashioned film, saying cameras these days have no need for them. Nako does find some really cute and sweet things, of course she also finds some pretty creepy things, too.

“Why do none of us know what year it is?” Yena asks.

“You could try asking me,” Hyewon says crossly.

“Do you know what year it is?” Yujin asks.

“Yes,” Hyewon says.

Yena turns to her. “Really?! What year is it?”

“The year I move out because none of you appreciate me,” Hyewon says.

Yena curls her hands into fists. “Do you actually know?”

Hyewon grins, and then takes off running. Yena is about to follow her, but Yujin holds her back.

“Leave her,” Yujin says firmly, “She’ll just spend an entire month driving you mad.”

Yena grinds her teeth. “I swear when this is all over I am getting a proper phone, I don’t care what Chaewon says about them stealing souls.” That damn girl and her irrational fear of magic.

Nako lets out a giggle that almost sends Yena to her knees.

“Sorry,” Nako says as Yujin pouts at her from the floor, having actually fallen to her knees from the force of Nako’s charms, “I took a picture of Chaewon weeks ago, you should have heard her scream.”

“Oh, is that what that was?” Yena asks, “I did hear it, I just didn’t feel like getting up to check out what had happened.”

“Where did she go?” Yujin asks.

Nako shrugs. “The cellar, I think. I assume she’s still there, unless Eunbi talked her into coming back up.”

“Should we check for Eunbi down there?” Yujin asks.

“No, she’s with Minju. Or Wonyoung,” Nako says. “Helping them train their eyes, or something.”

“Astronomy tower?” Yena asks.

“Might as well check,” Yena says. She turns to Nako. “Do you want to come?”

Nako shakes her head. “No, I need to eat. How are the two of you?”

“Just ate,” Yujin says.

“I’m okay, still,” Yena says.

Nako beams and bounces on her toes. “Okay, see you later!”

Again, Yujin and Yena have to fight not to fall down as Nako skips off.

* * *

_The older a vampire gets, the more powerful they are. They can manipulate people’s minds (“Like the force?” Wonyoung asked. That had been an interesting conversation.) and a Vampire Sakura’s age can make even other Vampires fall under her influence. She doesn’t mean to do it to her clan mates, but that’s another thing that comes with age. Sakura’s glamour is so powerful, it’s just always there. Nako and Eunbi’s glamours are getting to be like that as well, though Eunbi’s is not quite as strong._

_Eunbi was nearly as powerful as Sakura, though 300 years younger than her. Nako was the third most powerful vampire in their clan, and although she was at least 500 years younger than Sakura, it could be argued her strength matched Eunbi’s. According to Sakura, Nako had always been charming. She found Nako as a child, begging on the streets. Sakura was lonely and so she adopted Nako, raised her, and eventually turned her when she was old enough (“Sixteen has always been the age considered old enough to consent to the change. Nako didn’t know how old she was, I turned her when her third molars came in.”). They swam to China some time after Emperor Go-Toba died, and walked all the way to the Korean peninsula, where they met Eunbi and her little clan._

* * *

Yena and Yujin make their way to the astronomy tower (slowly as they’re still recovering from Nako) and they run into Sakura and Chaewon. Sakura has a lollipop that she’s holding against her lips, not quite licking it, and Chaewon is staring helplessly into her eyes. Yena quickly holds a hand in front of her own eyes, and Yujin follows suit.

“Hello, ladies,” Sakura croons.

Yujin whimpers, and Yena bites down on the inside of her cheek.

“We’re looking for Eunbi,” Yena says, still biting. “Have you seen her?”

“You’re heading the right way,” Sakura says. She beckons Chaewon along. “Come darling, there’s no witchcraft in this castle. Let’s get you something to eat.”

Yena snatches Yujin’s arm before she can follow Sakura like a moth to a flame. She pulls Yujin down the hall, keeping her eyes on a half-open door. She darts inside and runs smack into Yuri, and without a second thought she pushes Yuri back in and yanks Yujin along behind her, kicking the door shut with a crack that may or may not signal a break in the wood. But the sound snaps them all out of Sakura’s glamour, and they simultaneously fall to the floor, breathing out identical pained sighs.

“I feel sick,” Yena moans. She’s better at resisting Sakura’s charms because she’s just naturally stubborn and resistant to people telling her what to do, but being exposed to Nako and Sakura in the same day, minutes apart, and with Sakura actively using her glamour…

“What was that all about?” Yuri asks.

Yujin recovers fastest, she answers, “Didn’t Nako say Chaewon was hiding in the cellar for the past week? I guess Sakura finally went down and got her out.”

Yena growls, “Ooh, I’m going to curse Chaewon for sure!”

Yuri gives herself a little shake and gets to her feet. “Well when you do, will you tell me so I can watch? It’s been a while since I saw Eunbi tear someone’s head off.”

Yena winces. She wasn’t really going to do it…well, probably not, Yuri didn’t have to put that image in her head.

“You haven’t seen her, have you?” Yena asks. “Eunbi?”

Yujin elbows her. “She’s in the astronomy tower, remember?”

Oh, right—that’s where they were going. Yena closes her eyes and tries to get her thoughts straight—they’re looking for Eunbi because she wants to know what year it is, and she wants to know because she was thinking about the passage of time and suddenly realized she didn’t know what day, month, or year it was. She exhales slowly and opens her eyes. Yuri is already halfway back to her bed, and Yena calls out, “Do you know what year it is?”

Yuri flops down on her bed and shuffles her pillows around. “Can’t say I do, can’t say I care.”

* * *

_Eunbi had been turned around the fall of the later Silla Kingdom, and had ended up working as a doctor for the royal family during the Koryo dynasty. She found Chaeyeon in the palace working as an entertainer, befriended her, and later killed a man for attempting to assault her. They fled the palace and Eunbi turned her, and then they spent many years wandering between the peninsula and China. At around the start of the Joseon period they found Hyewon running from marriage, and Chaeyeon had been getting lonely, so Eunbi agreed to turn Hyewon in hopes she and Chaeyeon would develop a sisterly relationship._

_Sakura likes to say she and Chaeyeon fell in love at first sight, and Chaeyeon likes to roll her eyes at the phrasing. Sakura and Nako traveled with Eunbi for a few years, learning Korean and teaching the three of them Japanese. Chaeyeon and Sakura became something like a married couple around the death of King Jeongjo, and not long after Sakura and Nako started to miss Japan. Chaeyeon wanted to see the country, so with Eunbi’s permission she left Korea with Sakura and Nako._

_In the time apart, Eunbi’s coven grew. There were tough years ahead for Korea, and Eunbi found herself mothering Yuri, Chaewon, and Yujin over the following decades. In contrast, Sakura, Nako, and Chaeyeon didn’t sire any new Vampires while they were in Japan. They did, however, find Sashihara-san. She had started running a small town filled with Vampires, all of them girls, and all of them entertainers of sorts. It was a bit like…well, like a brothel, only instead of sex the girls sold singing and dancing. Sashihara would get them past their bloodlust, send them to nobility, and the girls would pool their wages and finance local government officials they liked. It was really something else._

_The three of them did return to Korea, only when they went back they weren’t three anymore—Sashihara had a girl, Hitomi, who wanted to see Korea, so Sakura took her in and brought her along. None of them were sure when, or if they would return to Japan—Sakura was thinking she might like to live in Korea for a little bit, Nako and Hitomi thought they might like to return to Japan after a while, but upon reuniting with Eunbi and Hyewon and meeting her new coven, they all became fast friends._

_Nine Vampires living together was hard to hide, and the country was really starting to get dangerous, so Sakura began looking for new places to hide themselves away. Vampires had always found ways to keep contacts, especially those as old as Sakura who ended up with fewer allies as the years went by and age granted them an almost godlike presence. She wrested control of an old, crumbling castle in Russia from a coven three times the size of Sashihara’s, the difference being they were all laughably new at Vampirism. The nine of them worked to build the old castle into something habitable, which took much longer than they had anticipated. Eunbi and Hyewon kept their eyes on Korea, and made frequent trips back to check on old friends, whose numbers only dwindled. It was on one such trip that Eunbi found Yena, bleeding in the street after being hit by a drunk driver._

* * *

Upon leaving Yuri’s room (“And shut the door, will you?”) Yena and Yujin find Chaeyeon, who stops them and asks if they know which way Sakura went.

“She had Chaewon—” Yujin starts, and Chaeyeon lets out a frustrated shout.

“I told her to wait for me! Did she glamour that poor girl?”

Yena and Yujin nod. Chaeyeon darts off so fast they can’t even follow her progress, nevermind ask her if she knows what year it is.

“Wonder which part of the castle she and Sakura will destroy this time,” Yena muses.

Yujin wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, don’t even go there, it’s snowing out and if they destroy the roof Eunbi will get pissy about the carpets getting wet.”

They have reached the astronomy tower, and before they go all the way up to the top Yena opens her mouth and inhales deeply. The scents of all the Vampires in the house hit the roof of her mouth, but most strong are Minju, Wonyoung, and Eunbi.

“They’re up there,” Yena says. “Finally, maybe we can get some answers.”

“I mean we looked everywhere else,” Yujin says as they start to climb, “Where did you think they could have gone if not here?”

“Hunting,” Yena says with a shrug, “I just wanted to be sure before we climbed all these stairs.”

Yujin nods, then chuckles. “Isn’t it weird? Being able to taste where people are?”

“Like a snake,” Yena agrees. “But I remember, when I was human, if I smelled something good I would open my mouth and inhale, and it would make my mouth water.” Suddenly she feels a wave of nostalgia and she thinks of the busy city streets of Seoul and the smells from the food carts, the sound of people chattering and children playing. It hits her so hard that she pauses and Yujin gives her a curious look.

But as she thinks of those city streets, she thinks of how hard she hit the pavement after the car hit her. She remembers how everything went silent as her head cracked on the road, the taste of blood filling her mouth and the blinding pain behind her eyes. She can almost smell the rubber tires burning as the driver sped off.

Her memories overwhelm her and her human body reacts—her heart rate kicks up, her knees shake and her palms begin to sweat.

“Eunbi-unnie!” Yujin shrieks as Yena crumples on the stairs, panic overwhelming her.

It takes seconds for Eunbi to arrive, suddenly she’s there and she’s got her hands on Yena’s face.

“Breathe,” Eunbi tells her.

Yena closes her eyes, opens her mouth and inhales. There’s no blood choking her, no smell of asphalt or exhaust. She smells fir trees and snow, the fresh scents clinging to Eunbi like she just spent days standing at an open window. She’s not in Seoul, she’s in a beautiful forest in the middle of nowhere and her family drives her crazy but they saved her, she’s safe in this crazy old palace and it’s been decades since she was left for dead.

Yena opens her eyes again, blinking away tears. Eunbi smiles and strokes her cheeks. She can see Minju and Wonyoung hovering behind her, and she can feel Yujin rubbing her back.

“Better?” Eunbi asks.

Yena nods. “Unnie, what year is it?” She croaks.

“It’s 2021,” Eunbi and Wonyoung say together.

Wonyoung beams. “Trump got elected out of the USA, did you know? There was chaos. Also the pandemic is still happening, but the humans are working on vaccines now.”

Yena sighs and leans back. “2021,” she echoes. “Wow, I’m like fifty now, aren’t I?”

Eunbi nods. “You are.”

“Old lady,” Minju teases.

Yena laughs, feeling more and more like herself now. “Oh? If I’m an old lady then what is Sakura?”

“A goddess,” Minju says dreamily. Then she scowls at Eunbi. “And Eunbi-unnie is a fossilized log.”

Eunbi screeches, “HEY! Listen here you ungrateful little—”

Minju and Wonyoung shriek with laughter and take off running away from the astronomy tower, shouting about freedom and ‘screw looking at the fleas on squirrels’ or something like that.

Eunbi scowls after them but ultimately doesn’t follow. “I’ll get them later,” she says, turning back to Yena. “Are you going to be okay?”

Yena nods. “Yes, just a little flashback is all.”

Eunbi helps her to her feet and then says, “Oh, how are your Latin studies going? Have you read the books?”

“I think I should take Yena to get something to eat,” Yujin jumps in, “Yena just had quite a shock, and it’s been a long day for us. We ran into Nako and then we almost got sucked into Sakura’s glamour just a few minutes ago…”

As she says that, there’s a ripple through the house that makes everyone freeze, and then a mighty crash echoes around them.

Eunbi draws her lips back in a snarl. “Was that the fucking draw bridge?” She’s gone before Yena or Yujin can move, but they can hear her shrieking at the top of her lungs in a mixture of old Korean, Japanese and possibly other languages.

“Holy hell,” Yujin whispers. “Maybe we should…run.”

“Are you kidding?” Yena laughs, “We should place bets! My money is on Chaeyeon tearing both their heads off!”

She runs down the hallways, intercepting Hitomi and Hyewon as they are also heading to watch the fight.

Hyewon grabs Yena’s hand and tugs her along even faster, “C’mon, let’s go!”

This place is truly mad, but Yena wouldn’t trade it for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a history major but I did my best, please forgive any historical inaccuracies.


End file.
